


The music of dreams that will never be

by onlymton



Series: Finding Runner Five [3]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: A giant cinnamon roll, F/F, F/M, Female Runner Five, Fertility Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Sam is a cinnamon roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 11:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15023327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlymton/pseuds/onlymton
Summary: Sam's anxious to explore the Chinese Cultural Centre for music from his childhood, but why has Five been so distant lately?***Major season 4 spoilers up through S4M11***(This work will make the most sense if you read the previous two pieces in this series to understand my take on Sam/Five. :)





	1. andante

If Sam Yao prides himself on anything, it’s on noticing details. He can tell when his runners are too exhausted to go out. He can tell when his friends are putting on a brave face or when they’ve had a sleepless night. 

He’s been cataloguing unusual behaviors from Five for several weeks now. She avoids the mess hall whenever possible. She rushes through her post-run bite checks. She’s been "too tired” for Sam in the evenings. 

He’s sitting in the mess hall with Maxine and Paula - but without Five - on a cool night, plates of green peas, kidney beans, and tiny blueberries arrayed in front of them. Paula reaches out every so often to caress Maxine’s belly. The baby. Their baby. 

“So, good news!” says Sam. “I may have found some Chinese music!”

“That’s wonderful, Sam!” says Paula. 

“Yeah. Been searching for ages on Rofflenet. Turns out the Chinese Cultural Centre has a whole library of CDs,” he says.

“Man, I could go for some lo mein right about now,” says Maxine, picking at her plate without enthusiasm. “And soy sauce. I could drink a whole bottle."

“We could look for lo mein, too,” says Sam, privately doubtful any noodles would have survived. “I could cook you a whole Chinese meal! Well, you know, if I knew how to do that. I can look for a cookbook...”

“It'll be nice for the baby to grow up learning about your heritage,” says Paula.

His mind wanders away, lost in imagining the food and music he’ll share with his future child.

“What’s Five up to?” asks Paula. 

“Says the mess hall is too traumatizing right now." He shrugs. "Maybe she’s still hung up about the whole Moonchild thing.”

A long, quiet moment passes. Sam spears another mouthful of beans onto his fork. 

“I think you should tell him, darling,” Paula says softly to Maxine.

“Tell me what?” asks Sam.

“I can’t violate patient confidentiality,” says Maxine, turning to Paula.

“Tell me what?” he asks again, the volume of his voice rising as he puts his fork down.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that Five has been avoiding us lately?” asks Maxine instead.

“She’s been avoiding me lately,” he says, blowing out a breath of frustration.

“You are with us most of the time,” says Paula.

“Of course I’m with you. We’re having a baby!” His defensiveness is on high alert. There’s nothing wrong with spending time with the mothers of his baby.

“Sam,” says Maxine, “I think you should talk with Five. About…this.”

“I think you should mind your own damn business,” he says, surprised to find he is standing. “Five and I are fine,” he adds, though he doesn’t really believe it.

“Just consider that maybe this situation isn't easy for her,” adds Paula.

Sam takes his tray and leaves the table. The baby shouldn’t matter, has nothing to do with him and Five. And yet, as he reviews the growing catalogue of his observations, he recognizes the common thread. She’s not avoiding him; she’s avoiding all three of them.

Tomorrow, after the mission, he’ll talk to her.


	2. rubato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of this chapter occur immediately after S4M11; Five and Sam have just returned from the Chinese Cultural Centre.

"That was a close one!" says Sam, patting Five’s arm as the gates close behind them. She stiffens at the contact.

He accepts the headset she thrusts into his chest before she stalks away with quick, even steps. 

Sam replays the previous hour's events in his head, trying to figure out what set her off. Okay, sure, Chinese zombies nearly bit his head off. But he escaped. And he has a backpack of CDs to share with the baby! Impatient to examine them, he jogs over to the comms shack, backpack in one hand, Five's headset in the other.

Janine is shutting off the feeds and audio equipment as he walks into the shack. It feels like home, all of his video screens and his control panel. His shabby couch and the rolling chair. He sets his backpack on the couch and hangs up Five's headset, then his own, the cling of metal meeting metal reverberating for a brief moment. A twinge of guilt crosses him; he should find out what upset her. They already need to talk about this whole avoidance thing, and now it seems even worse.

But the CDs! He unzips the backpack, lifting out his treasures and stacking them next to the tower cam screen. Janine picks the top one off the pile. 

"I have no idea what this says, Mr. Yao. But I do hope you obtained what you wanted."

"Me neither," says Sam, grabbing the CD back from her. "I'm going to look on Rofflenet for a Chinese translator first thing."

"Five's not with you?" asks Janine, and there's no mistaking the judgment in her voice.

"Uh, no,” he says, studying the cover of another CD with far more attention than it merits. “She went to go stretch. Or something."

"Just see that you don't let her stretch for too long,” she says, and the emphasis on "stretch" makes her point clear. "I have a strong interest in maintaining the morale at Abel, Mr. Yao. And that morale, increasingly, seems to be hinging on you and Runner Five."

"Uh huh…what?” he says, setting down a third CD. He swears that he recognizes a couple of the Chinese characters on the cover.

"Let me speak more plainly," says Janine, the pitch of her voice rising. "Go complete your bite check and then make sure that your relationship with Runner Five is sound."

"Excuse me?” he says, putting down the CD. "It's quite sound, thank you."

"Really? Then explain to me why Five's headset is here and she is not after your rather harrowing escape."

Sam stares at Five's headset, blinking, and the fog of CDs and China and baby begins to clear.

Paula was right; this can't be easy for Five. He picks up the stack of CDs, sets them next to the battered CD player, and sinks into his chair with a muffled thud.

"Yeah, all right, Janine," he finally says. "Just give me a minute, okay?"

She looks at him with a scowl that somehow communicates both disapproval and concern before exiting the comms shack. Sam lets his mind wander back to the day that Five had returned from London. He’d told her about the plan with Maxine and Paula, and she'd said that of course he should help them, of course she was okay with it.

But things hadn't been the same with her since, he realizes. That’s why he never sees her with Maxine or Paula. As the pregnancy's progressed, she's been keeping to herself.

CDs forgotten, he jumps up and strides out of the comms shack, heading for the hospital. Maxine does his bite check with well-practiced movements.

"Was Five here already?" he asks.

"Yes," says Maxine, her face a mask of neutrality, her hands resting on her belly. “I think she's at the track."

For reasons he can't quite name, he doesn't want to talk about Five with Maxine right now. He walks to the track. 

Five isn't there, but Jody and Lou are.

"What'd you do this time?" asks Jody, sitting on the grass with her legs straight, reaching for her toes.

"What?" says Sam.

"She's in a right mood," says Lou, who is supporting herself on the bench with one hand while twisting her right leg on top of her left. "Wouldn't say a word, but not hard to figure out you botched up."

He opens his mouth to reply with some hot retort but gives up. Abel's too small a place to stand on pretense and ceremony. 

"I don't know," he admits. "It was an easy mission. Just a brush with a few zoms at the end. Nothing she hasn't handled a million times before."

"Except it wasn't her in danger this time, was it?" says Jody, like he's the biggest idiot ever.

"I was fine," says Sam, except he knows that he almost wasn’t. That zombie by the door of the cultural centre was so close, he could smell its putrid breath. He was centimeters away from death, or worse, surviving a bite only to turn later. He doesn't know how the runners face them over and over again, hopes that he somehow makes it a little easier for them.

"She's probably in the shower," says Lou. "It won't take her long to cool off."

"Yeah. Thanks." He decides to head for Five's room, wait for her to return from the showers. He walks the short distance to the runners' barracks, swings open the main door, and heads down the hall.

She could have gotten a bigger room, when she became head of runners, but she said she liked her own room just fine. The honey locust tree outside the single pane of glass in the wall is pretty, as are the sunrises they've watched together from there. Her bunk is neatly made up, her thin army blanket spread across with the heavy down quilt he found for her folded at the foot. The wildflowers in the narrow cup on her desk, next to her journal and pencils, are beginning to wilt; Sam knows that she will replace them as soon as she notices. Her clothes are folded in careful piles on the rickety shelves on the wall across from her bed next to a few paperbacks. He sits on her bunk, prepared to wait.

He doesn't have to wait long. The door swings open and Five tears in, slamming the door behind her. She sees Sam and stops in place, still carrying her towel, her wet hair swept behind her ears, her t-shirt a bit damp. God, if she isn't just as lovely as ever.

She recovers from her surprise enough to drape her towel over the back of the chair, fussing with it for several seconds longer than necessary to make sure it hangs straight. He knows that he will have to be the first to speak.

"Please tell me what's going on."

"The CDs," she says without turning around.

"You're upset about CDs?" he asks.

"You almost got yourself killed over CDs!" She paces the few short steps to the other side of the room and back again.

"But I didn't. I'm here, I'm unbitten, I'm all right. Thanks to you, for the record. So, is this about the CDs or the baby?"

Five sits down next to him, her posture uncharacteristically slumped.

"Maybe you’re not as okay with this as I thought?" He places a hand between her shoulder blades. When she doesn't flinch, he gently sweeps it back and forth. 

She nods.

"Talk to me, Five. This won't work if we can't be honest with each other."

"I want to be okay with it.” She drops her hands into her lap. "I don't want to envy Maxine. But I do, because..." She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. "I can't give you a baby." 

“You mean, right now it’s just not possible, with everything going on, the apocalypse, being Head of Runners?” He tries to keep his voice neutral as he puzzles through her words. 

She is staring at him, as if willing him to understand, and he notices the tiny pools of moisture collecting in her eyes. He knows how much she hates to cry.

“You can’t because Maxine is? And you think I don’t want more than one baby?” he tries again, desperate to understand, but hearing how ludicrous this statement is as the words leave his mouth.

“I can’t get pregnant. I found out Before.” 

Realization sinks in with a terrifying certainty. If he's honest with himself, he was hoping that Maxine's pregnancy might inspire some conversations with Five about their future, conversations about the long term, a family. He's overcome with sadness for her - for them - and turns to face his impossibly beautiful and stubborn Five. She's struggling not to blink so that her tears don’t fall.

“Not at all?” he asks, willing it to not be so, wanting to connect his fresh grief from this truth with hers.

"Having a baby with you is a dream that will never be." She stands to face away from him again.

“I guess I understand why you’ve been avoiding Maxine and Paula," he says. "And me.” Helping Maxine and Paula is going to cost him his relationship with Five. Fierce waves of guilt and regret churn through him. 

"It’s too painful to be around us, to be around me,” he adds.

She stays silent.

“So, maybe, I should go. Yeah, all right. I’ll just go.” The last thing he ever wanted was to inflict pain on Five, who has endured so much already. He would do, be, anything for her, so he will make himself endure without her.

Five doesn’t move, and he walks out of her room, quietly closing the door as he goes.


	3. coda

Sam plunks his tray down on the table, rattling the plate. He’s not hungry; he puts his head in his hands and wonders who he might give his plate away to.

“Sam?” asks Maxine, a gentle hand resting on his shoulder.

“She hates me, okay? She hates me, because I agreed to help you and Paula. I made the wrong choice, and I can’t take it back, and I've lost her.”

“I'm sure she doesn't hate you.” She sits next to him. "Tell me exactly what happened.”

He does.

“So, you knew? About her not being able to have a baby?” he asks after he’s done.

“I can't divulge confidential patient information,” she says.

“You could have told me!" he shouts, interpreting her response as affirmation. "You could maybe, just maybe, have let me know that I was about to destroy my relationship with Five by flaunting our baby in front of her."

"No one's 'flaunting,'" says Maxine. Her voice is shaking a little, but Sam recognizes her professional demeanor asserting itself over the emotion. "I'm not going to apologize for wanting a baby with Paula, for helping her fulfill what will probably be her dying wish. And I'm also not going to apologize for asking my best friend and the finest man I know to help us."

"I'm sorry." Sam shakes his head. "I didn't mean it." He pats Maxine on the hand, and she covers it with her own.

"It's okay," she says. "I don't think any of us thought through the consequences."

"It's hard to think about, with Five," he confesses. "I mean, I'd be lying if I hadn't imagined her and me, you know, someday. But it doesn't matter." The determination to fight for her - for them - is suddenly overwhelming. 

“I bet it does matter to her,” Maxine says, her voice back to its baseline calm. “I’ve taken care of a lot of women with infertility over the years. Almost all of them blame themselves, no matter how hard you try to convince them otherwise.”

“That’s just completely ridiculous!”

“I’m just telling you what I’ve seen. Besides, you know how personally Five takes everything.”

“Yeah. Didn’t get the eleventh box of cereal into her bag, and she’s a total failure.” He rolls his eyes. “But we can figure something out - you and Paula did. God, Maxine, she’s only the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. How could ever she think I could love her less for something that is completely not her fault?”

He’s aware of a presence behind his shoulder, and before he turns around he knows it’s Five. He spins to find her looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

“Hi,” he says, feeling particularly lame.

“Sam." A hint of a smile plays at the corners of Five's mouth. 

He watches Maxine slip away from the corner of his eye.

“Will you…would you like to eat with me?” He stands, takes her tray, and sets it on the table next to his. 

She takes advantage of her free hands to wind them around his back, and Sam returns the hug with fervor and relief.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he whispers, his arms tight around her. "It doesn't change how I feel about you."

She pulls away enough to look at him, the usual fire in her eyes dimmed with doubt. 

“I guess I didn't think I'd feel this way about the baby,” he adds. “I thought it would just be something nice for Maxine and Paula. But I think I have enough love for you and him. Or her," he amends quickly.

She nods.

"And, you know, it's not like Maxine and I..." He feels his cheeks warm. "You know. Neither of us wanted that. That's why we, uh, went the specimen container route. And I still don't want to know how she and Paula took it from there."

"Let's definitely not go there." Her smile blossoms. 

“I only want you," he says, his hands in her hair. 

She leans forward and kisses him, and it's his turn to smile against her lips. His Five. He could tease her about this propensity to kiss him in the mess hall, but his mood is rapidly shifting in a different direction.

"I know it's the middle of the afternoon, but..." he whispers into her ear. 

“Lunch first?” she asks, her belly releasing a soft growl.

“Yeah, sure, lunch first. I mean, you just got back from a run and all. Can't have my best runner sacrificing her nutrition! You probably burned at least a thousand calories out there today!” He discovers that he’s hungry, too, and they sit and tuck into their plates.

Sam looks up from the middle of telling Five about the Chinese characters on the CDs to see Paula and Maxine standing across the mess hall, holding hands, Maxine giving him a thumbs up. He waves back. It’ll be okay. Now that he’s got Five back, it all has to be okay.


End file.
